“Next week?” he said dangerously. “Next week is too late. I don’t need a refund. I need to be engaged!”
“That’s ridiculous. And impossible.”
“She hasn’t done it, has she? She hasn’t made me a match.”
“No, I don’t believe she has. I can’t—”
He regarded her stormily for long enough that it felt as if she was going to stop breathing.
“What about you?”
“Excuse me?”
He stepped toward her. He didn’t reach out and he didn’t touch her, and yet Krissy felt as if he had taken her glasses off and was planning on running his hands through her hair.
“Yes, you’ll do,” he decided, a touch too clinically. “There’s a little of that librarian look to you. Wholesome. The girl next door. Yes, you’ll do.”
Krissy’s heart was beating madly, as if he had removed her glasses.
“I am not going to be your temporary toy!” she said. She wanted to sound firm, but her voice had an unfortunate squeak to it. Librarian, indeed.
He cocked his head charmingly at her, as if he was not being completely ludicrous.
“Toy,” he said, his tone mulling. “No, no, I don’t think so.”
Why on earth would she feel vaguely insulted by his dismissal?
“That could lead to complications,” he explained gravely. “That’s in part why I turned to your aunt. No complications. Still, we would need to get to know each other first, before we made it official. It’s important to know each other.”
“You think?” she asked. He seemed to miss her sarcasm.
“It’s for a family reunion in the Catskills, the long weekend in July. My sister would know instantly if you didn’t know what my favorite color was. Restaurant. Movie. That kind of thing.”
What kind of weakness was it that Krissy suddenly wanted to know what his favorite color was? Restaurant? Movie? Plus, the long weekend in July. She had always spent it with Aunt Jane, who knew, as her own parents had not, that occasions—birthdays, Christmas, Easter, the Fourth of July—were important to families.
His invitation felt like a reprieve from the looming weekend alone, but more, it felt as if she was being invited to step into the pages of a story, a very interesting story with all kinds of twists and turns and characters she knew nothing about.
Krissy did not like temptations. She did not appreciate her sudden awareness that the nice, safe, predictable life she had so carefully constructed for herself might be slightly… Well, boring.
That was her aunt’s word, after Krissy had brushed off her enthusiasm about having found the perfect man for her.
You’re too young to be so set in your ways, so allergic to adventure. Life is not meant to be such a bore, my dear.
“Come on,” he said persuasively. “It will be fun.”
Fun. So no matter what he said, there was an element of her being his toy in there. Temporarily.
What do you do for fun?
Krissy considered what she would put on that application form. She walked her dog. She planned lessons for her class. She took in the odd Broadway show. She read.
She resented Jonas Boyden for holding out this to her, like a carrot in front of a donkey reluctant to take even one step. And she detested herself for wanting something.
But what?
Something just a tiny bit unexpected in her routines, she admitted slowly. For life to surprise her.
As if it hadn’t done quite enough of that! And what she needed to remember from her past, from growing up caught between a battling mother and father, was that the surprises were rarely ever of the pleasant variety, and that there were few things in life more dangerous than hoping it would be better. Her aunt’s sudden death was a case in point about the nastiness of surprises.
“No,” she said firmly.
He frowned, just like the kind of brooding hero who blew in on a dark night, just like the kind of man who rarely heard the word no from anyone, let alone a member of the opposite sex, just like a man who could turn a woman’s world upside down without half trying.
He considered her thoughtfully, then lifted an elegant shoulder. “All right,” he said, giving up with surprising ease, as if suddenly having a fiancée, or a toy, or whatever, didn’t matter to him a whit.
Was she annoyed by that? No, she told herself firmly. She was relieved. That was all.
CHAPTER THREE
KRISSY’S RELIEF AT having the issue of being Jonas’s temporary toy settled was short-lived. Over the broadness of his shoulder, she watched a police car slide silently up to the curb. Two officers got out, settled their hats on their heads and turned narrowed eyes toward her aunt’s office.
“Oh, no! They must be responding to the alarm. I’d better go tell them that—”
Jonas stayed her with a hand on her shoulder, then turned and looked over his own shoulder. “I don’t think you want to go racing out there when they could well think a robbery is in progress.”
His hand on her shoulder did not feel in any way domineering. His voice was deep, quiet and reassuring. She felt protected. Again, Krissy allowed herself a sense of it being okay, every now and then, to rely on someone else. As long as it didn’t become a habit! When his hand slid away from her shoulder, she realized how easily leaning on someone else could become a habit. Even an addiction!
The policemen were eyeing the building warily. It occurred to Krissy that she and Jonas were just two shadowy figures standing in a darkened building that an alarm—that had not been turned off properly—had gone off in.
“What should we do?” she whispered uneasily.
“Just wait. Let them come to us. Don’t make any fast moves once they come through that door.”
She gulped and scanned Jonas’s face. He looked perfectly calm. In fact, irritatingly, he looked as if he might actually be delighting in this.
He glanced at her, his smile seeming to confirm he might be enjoying this just a tiny bit too much—a man who embraced the kind of adventures she was
